Nina

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING?

I was always interested in marginalised groups, people from the edge of society, who are pushed away, maybe strange, maybe they just think outside of the squared reality. I am also interested in what all people give up for their comfort, in comfort of everyday life, in stereotypes, how West is distancing from nature, etc. What are other ways of living together, including all living organisms and forms, not just people. I am interested in power structure, in different angles of justice, in how to invite change. I am interested in the power of art as a form of change. What are the ways to change things, where does the power of change come from, can it arise from one person or it has to be mass of people. Tomi Janežič and the team, which I was part of as an assitant of the scenographer Branko Hojnik, we started to work on the play Beyond our power at the National theatre in Oslo, Norway, but the show was cancelled in February 2020, due to Covid situation. The text is still amazingly accurate today, it talks about man in power, who extract from the land and take advantage on people who live in the village and on the opposite those people, who live there and have enough of this toxic power relations. So at one point, when all these men meet in a castle up the hill, one of the villagers does a bomb suicide and kills them all, except one. This act opens up many questions, from how to make a change from bottom up, the rights of workers. It is not exusable to kill twenty people to make a better living for thousands, is this an act of bravery or an act of despair, where does greed come from, etc. I believe we can make change through art, I just got recently very inspired by the documentary 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' on Nan Goldin. It shows her life work, her photographic work and how it changed and influenced the life of many, the strugle of gay people in the AIDS era, her life and her recent protests against Sackler family as a form of activism. She personaly went through a lot in life and from this point she can make a change, when you survive so much, you are not afraid anymore and you became a force of change. I feel it adds the depth to a project, something I am looking for in everything I do. My most recent project is a short 4-minute long film about two intersex people from Slovenia.

HOW DID YOU DO IT?

I filmed, edited and directed myself. I used the voice recordings from their first meeting in summer 2022, when I asked Eros if he can record it. I met Eros In winter 2022 and Luka in summer 2022, after their first meeting. Their starting point is similar, but after their first year of life, they unfortunately lived two very different lives.

RELATION TO PREVIOUS PRACTICE

I did a project once, where I combined my photographs from the area I lived for several years in Ljubljana and my poems I wrote, based on experiences I had living in that area. I knew some of those people and talked to them, but also

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO MAKE NEXT?

WHY DO YOU WANT TO MAKE IT?

RELATION TO A LARGER CONTEXT

bigger question to which my work connects

REFERENCES

I have been working on a project, a few conversations between two homeless people and their observation about people on the street.

I got a call from a friend before Christmas, and she said she is having a hard time this year at this time, because she broke up with her boyfriend and she always had a nice time at his familiy’s Christam dinners and she is missing that. Dinners with her family were not as happy as of her ex-boyfrined’s, so she is not so eager to go home for holidays. I completely understand her, I also have mixed memories of spending Christmas with my family. The ones we celebrated with my broader relatives, for example with my cousin’s family and with my aunt, I have great memories of, because we were a group of 20 or more people, singing and dancing and eating really delicious dinners. The ones I have spent only with my family, were not so great because I had at least one fight per night with my father and it always turned out bed for everyone, unfortunatelly. When mine or my sisters boyfrineds were invited though, we had a nice time all together. Like if my family needs and outside person to establish piece and a nice atmosphere, to behave nicely to each other and to have the energy to enjoy.

This year me and Bonino stayed in Rotterdam during holidays and since we have just moved and we don’t know many people here yet, we haven’t been invited to any dinner, so it felt a bit lonely. I love to host or be invited to a dinner, it feels very intimate and it gives me special joy.

I have been walking a lot here, because I don’t have a bycicle, and when I bought one, the tire went flat in a month. I am mainly walking through the city center to school and I find it very strange to see, that there are so many shops. The city center to me basically feels like one big shop. No galleries, no underground spaces, nothing destroyed or damaged, there is only built environment for commerical use. Maybe also the colours have that affect, because everything is quite gray and dark and the winter weather doesn’t help either.

I also miss long walks in forests and walking up the hills, it makes me feel relaxed. In the Netherlands as far as I know there is no ‘wild’ nature. In Slovenia my parents live in the Alps and the nature there is quite beautiful and unpredictible, you can still meet a bear in the forest.

I am quite fascinated about the ways we see homelessnes, how we perceive that as something negative and why are we so opinionated about the people who are homeless. Us if they all had the same story. They might once lived life as we do now, but had a struggle that was too big to continue this lifestyle. Why we don’t judge the system that alows people to live on streets, which happens more in the cities than in countryside. And in cities, where people are so rich, some have to live on the street. Are they unfortunate or are they the rebels? What do they remind us of? What truth they bring? Why are we disturbed by them? Why are we not willing to give someone 1 euro, when we pay rents that are getting way too high and unregulated. Do people feel safe in systems? This brings a new topic, which I am also interested in, talking about life in cities, anonymity, distance, being invisible, being average.

Are homeless people really observing people or is their own struggle big too big, to take notice of others?

Is there homlesness in Metaverse?